Pacing yourself for the long run;

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By Hal Higdon
It can be stated with precise mathematical certainty that the majority of readers of this article— unless they change their pattern of living—will;
a) die too soon,
b) enjoy life too little. This is the burden carried by the average American.
Consider the statistics. Despite easy access to the best of medical facilities, the American male ranks only seventeenth in longevity among the major nations of the world. American women rank tenth in longevity, but their death rate from heart disease is the highest of women in any country, "More than half the deaths in the United States today are caused by cardiovascular ailments and the numbers are growing," claims Lawrence E. Lamb, M.D., professor of medicine at Baylor University and author of Your Heart and How to Live with It. "Worse, these ailments are reaching younger and younger people. For this reason, contrary to the popular misconception, our life expectancy has not improved appreciably in the last two decades despite advances elsewhere in the field of health."
pacing
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The cause is that Americans have passed into what Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., describes as "an era of physical passivity," Dr. Cooper, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, is the author of the best-selling fitness book Aerobics.
Autopsies on American teenagers killed as soldiers during the Korean war showed arteriosclerosis already prevalent. Autopsies on more active Korean youth, however, showed little arteriosclerotic development. Numerous studies in past years comparing people in vigorous occupations (such as letter carriers vs. sedentary jobs such as business executives) show less heart disease among the former. In one classic health study comparing London bus conductors (who had to climb stairs to an upper deck) with their drivers, the drivers came out second best.
How would public accountants rank in such studies? When was the last time you carried anything heavier than an H&S workbag? How far do you walk to get from your desk to the coffee machine?
Public accountants might be compared to drivers, who also work from the seat of their pants. They face
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more mental than physical strain. There also is a period of peak stress For the driver it comes in rush hour traffic, while the CPA has his busy season after the first of the year.
A person interested in health and a long life might look at the numbers and switch his job to that of a postman or bus conductor. Not necessarily. First, how long has it been since you saw a postal letter carrier on foot—or a double-decker bus? The era of physical passivity has engulfed us all. Second, a study published recently in the Metropolitan Life Statistical Bulletin noted that men listed in Who's Who in America (business executives included) lived longer than men in the general population. Seemingly this disproved the active vs. sedentary theories; however, there was a hooker. "The favorable mortality observed among the prominent men," so read the report, "is believed to reflect in large measure their physical and emotional fitness for positions of responsibility." Thus, if you stay in good health you more likely will be in a position to make Who's Who. (Ambitious young executives, please note.) The question becomes: how do you stay in good health? Particularly as an employee of Haskins & Sells, how do
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